Persistent bloody eye discharge

Hello! I'm here about my cat Amber again. She sure has been getting into lots of trouble recently! Just a few weeks ago, she got a laceration on her tummy most likely from fighting another cat, but she recovered really nicely and well and rebounded quite quickly. Two weeks after her cut, she had her stitches removed and got the ok to go back outside again. A week later, she came home without her collar on and I knew immediately something was up. When I checked her out, she had bloody discharge coming from one eye. There appeared to be blood on her third eyelid which was then sort of gooping up her nose by her eye. I'm guessing she may have been caught on a branch and the collar came off (quick release) and she might have poked her eye in the process of trying to escape.

I took her to the vet and they did not find anything wrong with her cornea which was good. (In January, she had a corneal ulcer which took 1 month to heal.) But they couldn't really find any signs of a scratch otherwise and didn't seem sure what caused it. They took her temperature and it was ok. She seems ok otherwise, she's eating and drinking and playing. I was not very satisfied with how un-thorough the exam was. They gave us some Isthathal eye gel to give her 2x a day for 5 days. Tuesday was her last day of having it and the eye seemed to be doing well.

Last night, I noticed some more discharge again so I wiped it off to see if it would come back. It looked more like just eye goop and less like blood actually IN her third eyelid like before. Today, I checked to see if there was more and there is. I'm wondering if its come back after we finished her gel treatment and what might be causing it? I'm going to give her some more of the Isathal gel to see if that helps and give her eye a good rinse in case there is any debris there that I can't see.

Anybody have ideas about what could cause this to come back so quickly? Could it be something not actually wrong with her eye, like feline herpes virus?

It could be just about anything.  Could be Feline Herpes, but has she ever shown signs of that before?  Could be something in that eye.  Could be a scratch.  Could be many things.

Sorry, no way for us to know.  Hopefully you'll get it figured it so it'll stop.

Of course. I guess I'm wondering what all the possibilities are. Its strange the vet didn't actually see a scratch on her eye or anything but he didn't discuss any alternative with me.

Last night her eyes were both a bit watery and she was rubbing the eye with the discharge a bit, so its clearly still bothering her. I think we'll probably take her back again to the vet next week, but I'm trying to formulate questions to ask to target this vet with info because he isn't very talkative I guess.

As far as symptoms of FHV go, I'm not sure. She sneezes every now and again but not a lot. She has a good appetite. Otherwise its just her eyes. I thought it might be triggered FHV because she may have been stressed out after her laceration a couple of weeks ago.

I was concerned about her potential exposure to FIV or FIP from the scratch from the other cat, but I am unclear on whether either of those can be spread that way and I doubt symptoms would show up this soon but I don't know much about either of them. She has been vaccinated otherwise for rabies, panleukopenia and FeLV.

According to this article, FIV is transmitted via BITING: http://www.thecatsite.com/a/fiv-in-cats 

FIP is not quite as understood yet, however, many believe is cannot be transmitted from cat to cat.  Here is one article about it:  http://www.thecatsite.com/a/fip-in-cats

Here is an article on Ocular Herpes:  http://www.thecatsite.com/a/ocular-eye-herpes-in-cats

One on normal Feline herpes:  http://www.thecatsite.com/a/feline-herpes-and-rhinotracheitis

and finally, one on eye infections:  http://www.thecatsite.com/a/eye-infections-in-cats

Hopefully you'll find something among these articles to help you with your discussion with your Vet